Friday, June 3, 2016

Special Feature: Three Poems by Carol Lavelle Snow

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is pleased to present three poems by Carol
Lavelle Snow.All three were
finalists in the 2016 Songs of Eretz Poetry Award Contest.

Snow has an MFA in
drama, taught college English for several years, and has directed plays and
performed in various theatres, including playing Aunt Eller in Discoveryland’s
production of Oklahoma! for eleven summers.Her scripts have appeared on the Narrative Television Network
and at Spotlight Theater.

Snow has published
The Search for Hezekiah’s Gold, a western novel, and The Gray
Warriors, a book she and her husband wrote about his experiences working
with the DEA in Peru. Her poetry is online in magazines such as Writer’s
Haven, StepAway Magazine, and Ancient Paths Literary Journal
and in print in several journals, including The Lyric, Harp-Strings Poetry
Journal, and Crosstimbers.

Summer Love

Carol Lavelle Snow

Rain
gave no relief from the heat, no refreshing.

Heavy,
hot days and warm, moist nights blanketed us,

smothering
us in their caresses. Draining us of the will

to
move or even think.

Yet move we did

to
the flickering of our own fire and when it died,

fanned
the embers, as if addicted to the salt of sweat,

and
spewed out words that stung like summer wasps,

as
if addicted to the salt of tears.

Of course,

it
seems so foolish now—that we didn’t see

the
season for what it was, seek some shade,

cool
our passion and nurture what we were planting.

Poet’s Notes:In the spring of our lives, we
look at love through fairytale eyes. Hurts that may seem life threatening are
usually superficial and heal easily with time. But after you’ve met and
married your Prince Charming, you may find that your “happy ever after” has
turned into scenes from an Italian opera.

“Summer Love” reflects the pathos of
a love shared by two people who are fairly mature in years but still too
immature to really know how to care for each other.

Editor’s Note:Snow captures the rush
of emotion and drama of summer love well here. I particularly enjoy the
way she plays on steamy words such as: heat, heavy, hot, moist, and
blanketed. The salt of sweat turning into that of tears is
breathtaking.“Summer Love” first
appeared in 2008 in Dream Catcher,
a self-published poetry chapbook.

* *
* * *

So Silently

Carol Lavelle Snow

So
silently the night draws near

obscuring
trees and grass and pier.

As
if to rest the lake lies still

beneath
a deep blue dome that fills

with
distant suns where daylight’s cheer

warms
unknown lands. But I am here

and
you’ll be gone another year

and
absence has the power to kill

so
silently.

You’ve
tried your best to quell my fear

and
though your words sound most sincere,

I’m
just not sure you have the will

to
fight against night’s quiet chill.

I’ve
lost so many things so dear

so
silently.

Poet’s Notes:This poem first came to
me as a visual image--a lake at night. Tall grass grows along the bank
and an empty wooden pier stands near the shore. The scene is quiet,
washed over with blue. And lonely. Because someone has left from
that pier and may not come back.

I think we’ve all been
surprised at how much a friend can change over the years, change so much that
we don’t even recognize him or her at a class reunion. What is worse
though is that often we no longer have anything in common with that person we
were once close to. Of course, lovers, even husbands and wives, can grow
apart during separations too, and separation is especially painful for the one
left at home if the other travels off to new experiences and challenges, to new
worlds, lighted by stars, by suns, the one left behind can only guess at.This poem is about the pain of
separation and the fear of what separation can do.

Editor’s Note:I enjoy the way Snow uses
refrain in this lovely poem. The rhythm is flawless; the rhyme scheme
simple yet elegant; the message poignant and universal.“So
Silently” was first published in The Lyric, Winter 2012.

* * * * *

Journey to the Past

Carol Lavelle Snow

My aunt and I leave
Erick, Oklahoma, and drive south on Highway 30 across flat farm and ranch
land--very few trees, just sky from one horizon to the other—until we reach
what the locals call “the breaks,” land broken by canyons and arroyos—a
favorite haunt of outlaws in the good ol’ days.

“Once the sheriff came to our house to get Uncle George to help him find a
couple of men out here,” my aunt says, squinting her eyes against the glare of
the sun.

I laugh. “I guess he knew exactly where they’d go. Everywhere else
you can see for miles.”

posse
coming fast

hoofs
pound the hot prairie

no
place to hide

From there we go to Willow, a one-cafe town, its streets swept clean by the
wind, its few houses bleached by the sun. In a small building beside the
Baptist Church we meet the minister, my aunt’s cousin, my cousin too, I guess,
and attend a Bible study.

Sparse, gray hair, tall and thin, he’s a pleasant, friendly man. My aunt
introduces us, and he gives me a hug. They talk about his recent trip to
Africa. He’s spent many years there and knows the languages of the areas
he visits.

The other people arrive—a young man, earnest, intelligent—and a dark woman in
her 20’s or 30’s, who watches the rest of us in fear as we open our Bibles and
chatter away. She’s afraid we’ll expect her to say something.

ideas
on ideas

stir,
turn, fold into the mix

awesome
God

Sunday finds us close to the Texas border in Hess. In fact, Hess was
originally part of Texas, because someone mistook a fork of the Red River for
the actual river and got the boundary wrong. My great grandfather may
have started the Hess Baptist Church in 1889. We drive out to a grove of
trees where the congregation first gathered. The church building was
built later and still stands—a small but very nice church—solid and
substantial. Everything else is gone—not even one cafe or store—not even
a post office to mark this once prosperous town that sprang up near the Great
Western Cattle Trail. I feel strangely at home here.

gnarled
man in winter

places
old photos on pew

see my own face

Poet’s Notes:My
father grew up in western Oklahoma, my mother in eastern Oklahoma. They
met at college. He died
during WWII when I was four years old. My mother and I lived near her
family, and his family moved to California. So I had little contact with
them. Then a few years ago his sister came for a visit and suggested we take a
trip to western Oklahoma. This poem is about our trip.

I’d had brief glimpses of the
area from hints in his letters and diary, and I seriously doubt that it had
changed a great deal since my father lived there. I don’t even remember seeing
fast food restaurants in Erick, Oklahoma. Their house was gone, of
course, but we visited the site where it had been and the ruins of the school
they had attended.

“Journey to the Past” is about
our connection to place. A strong connection, even when that connection
is through parents or grandparents.

Editor’s Note:Haibun are not at all
easy to compose, and this one is well done. I particularly enjoy the way the
haiku enhance the narrative elements without simply continuing the
narrative.“Journey to the Past”
first appeared in Dream Catcher
in 2008.

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